Styro's New 1,000,000 W Laser

[steve001]

Cool and frightening at the same time.

 

[Alaskan]

Cool but I wouldn't be so willing to use that thing on my wrist like that.

 

[BowtieGuy]

Nope, I agree, I wonder how his poor wrist looked a couple of days later?
Can you imagine someone who is ignorant of such powerful lasers getting a hold of one of those, holy $hit!

 

[Alaskan]

I've been tempted to buy one of those lasers for the last three years, should have, they do a lot more power than I thought and that KTP crystal works great to make green. They go from about 650 to 1000 dollars on ebay for what appears to be the same model.

 

[BowtieGuy]

Expensive, but not as much as I would have thought; definitely would be fun to play with.

 

[Alaskan]

I suspect he was pulsing it far faster than it was rated for, maybe reducing the life of the flash tube and more. Anyone know?

 

[steve001]

I've been tempted to buy one of those lasers for the last three years, should have, they do a lot more power than I thought and that KTP crystal works great to make green. They go from about 650 to 1000 dollars on ebay for what appears to be the same model.

You might have noticed the green beam is focused to a few inches. I wonder how bright the spot would appear if collimated for low divergence?

 

[steve001]

Nope, I agree, I wonder how his poor wrist looked a couple of days later?
Can you imagine someone who is ignorant of such powerful lasers getting a hold of one of those, holy $hit!

The damage appears no worst than typical dermal laser ablation.

 

[paul1598419]

IDK, I just see showing this on YouTube as irresponsible. But, that's just me. Can you imagine someone getting into the power supply while it's running? These things likely have few, if any, safety features.

 

[styropyro]

There are people selling these systems along with totally useless goggles and I'm the irresponsible one? lol. I explained the extreme danger involved on multiple occasions, so it's not like people are going into it blindly if they decided to purchase one after seeing my video. Think about the poor bastards who bought one of these to remove their tattoos and used the included goggles. I would much rather they had seen my video first before buying one. Remember than anyone with $40 and a paypal account can buy a ~1.5W handheld blue laser.

As for the laser itself, the entire kits can be bought for under $500 shipped if you look around. That's actually a great price compared to building your own flashlamp pumped, q-switched Nd:YAG laser from surplus parts. These are excellent for exploring dye lasers! Be warned that goggles that block this laser won't usually block dye laser emission too though.

High OD goggles are a must for something like this. I'm using OD8 wraparound goggles. I wouldn't be surprised if blasting a pair of el cheapo goggles from eBay with this laser would result in dye laser emission. Goggles should be worn BEFORE starting up the laser. Sometimes turning the laser off and then turning it back on within a minute or so will cause the laser to fire a pulse immediately on startup.

I suspect he was pulsing it far faster than it was rated for, maybe reducing the life of the flash tube and more. Anyone know?

The system allows for rep rates of 1Hz to 10Hz unmodified, and gives adjustable pulse energy too. At 10Hz with energy maxed out, there is an average of about 300W going through the flashlamp. There is a thermistor located on the return of the coolant fluid line to keep an eye on temperature, and it never got out of hand during long periods of use. I don't have a datasheet on the lamp but I doubt this is pushing it that hard. The unit I showed in my unit was actually used with over 40000 shots on the lamp. I don't know how it was ran for those shots though.

 

[Alaskan]

Amazing duty cycle for such an inexpensive unit.

 

[paul1598419]

Yeah, you did point out the lack of proper goggles that came with this unit. But, in the race to exploit a base of fans on YT, it seems that more could have been said about the dangers of a power supply that can kill you. Sometimes it's just better not to go there.

 

[Alaskan]

I found something similar to this model on ebay for 500 dollars with these specs shown:

ND: YAG laser
Laser wavelength: dual wavelength 1064nm 532nm
Pulse energy: single pulse ≥160mJ double pulse ≥270mJ multi-pulse ≥700mJ
Pulse width: 8ns
Spot area: 1-5mm
Frequency: 1-10HZ

and..... found this one which looks very similar for 900 USD:

Type of laser: Solid-state Q-switch Nd:YAG laser
Wavelength: 1064nm, 532nm ,1320NM
Output Energy: 2000mJ
Pulse duration: 8-10ns
Frequency: 1-10Hz

Can you link to the model you purchased? I don't know what to believe from any of these sellers.

 

[GSS]

People responsible or non responsible, adults or kids are going to buy this unit.
Putting the laser head in a "cool ray pistol" type of thing was a planned marketing thing from the builder.
I am 100% to Stryo showing this video. Any chance of showing it dangers is alot better than not showing at all..
The only thing missing was that Styro didn't test the cheap glasses that came with it.
Stryo, was there a reason why?

 

[Alaskan]

Good idea, wish he had done so too. He would need a 1064 and 532 nm source and a sensitive detector, i.e. defocused laser pointers and LPM. I am not sure what the doll face head does, but it might be 1320 nm, if it is, I would sure love to know how they achieve that wavelength through using that head.

 

[BowtieGuy]

Can you link to the model you purchased? I don't know what to believe from any of these sellers.

Good idea, Chris, I was going to ask the same question. I also looked at a lot of ebay listings of these, and the costs are all over the place, but there are quite a few that look similar to Styro's, and are priced in the $500 - $600 range.